On the 2nd day of Ramadan 2017 our senior warden Evelyn and I attended the annual fundraising dinner of the American Muslims for Hunger Relief (AMFHR). We did this at the invitation of Ghani Khan, the Executive Director. The Church of the Advocate and AMFHR have shaped a partnership that fruited in Halal meals being offered monthly at our Advocate Cafe. How wonderful it was that evening of the fundraiser to be immersed in a cultural event outside of the Eurocentric, Christocentric framework, one that propelled me and Evelyn into a sea of colors, textures, tastes, hues and sounds that declared another way of being that nourished and enlightened and spoke to a powerful encounter with the sacred.
What AMFHR does for the Advocate community is less about the Halal meat made available to our patrons. What AMFHR does is remind us that the work before us as Christians is sometimes best done in relationships that cross boundaries to find places of common mission. Our relationship with AMFHR is not predicated upon removal and substitution, we have not substituted any Islamic beliefs or practice for our own, but rather is situated upon a common interest to meet a basic human need; i.e. the need for food. The shock is not in the partnership but in the need.
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We are all aware of the need to have our church buildings be accessible. Federal and state regulations mandate the physical requirements for access. Our Welcoming Forums from years past highlighted the importance of this issue. However, many of our churches are still not in full compliance for physical accessibility. Most have ramps, some have accessible bathrooms, but movement from one floor to another is still an issue. I recently attended a breakfast event where the church hall was on the second floor with winding stairs. Chairlifts and elevators are expensive so the required upgrades are often not made. A reminder that there are grants available to assist organizations to become compliant, therefore we need to be more vigilant about seeking these funds. The consequences are the deterrence of persons from attending church and clients from accessing outreach programs.
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The news was frightening – and frighteningly familiar. An attack on students at Ohio State University. Accounts of an active shooter turned into active assailant who by all counts purposefully plowed into a group of students and professors, and then attacked them with a butcher knife. We learned soon that the attacker was from a native of Somalia and a Muslim.
Immediately, I heard calls for tighter immigration controls and see-I-told-you-so’s from people who support a mandate for the government to register (and restrict?) all Muslims.
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Like most of the country, I had never heard of Bean Blossom (also spelled Beanblossom) Indiana, before this weekend. It’s honestly the kind of name someone on the blue parts of the coasts might make up to mock the perceived backwardness or hokey-ness of the center of the country. Bean Blossom.
Last Sunday, the members of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Bean Blossom arrived at their church to find it painted with a swastika, the phrase “Heil Trump” and the phrase “Fag Church.”
I want to be like Bean Blossom.
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I planned to be a gracious winner the week after the election.
I wasn’t going to rub it in the faces of folks who had been Donald Trump supporters. My social media presence would be demure, and while I expected to dance a little jig inside, my public persona would call for unity and broad arms to encircle the disenfranchised.
I didn’t expect to be the one needing the arms.
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Music has always been a struggle in our Spanish service at St. Mary’s. As we have slowly built membership in our largely low-income neighborhood, we are not anywhere close to generating the kind of offerings that would fully support the clergy time that goes into the service, much less paying a professional musician. We’ve tried different things over the years -- a priest with a guitar or piano, a capella singing, some paid musical help. In recent years, we’ve come upon what I would argue is the best musical situation yet: bartering for band music.
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Commemorations and TV specials marked the 15 anniversary of 9/11. I know many priests, including my own, preached stirring sermons. At my church, we also experienced the words of the sermon come to life.
The day before we had a special delivery. Our congregation is building a columbarium in the chapel, and many folks have come together to work on various components. The contributions of these parishioners are wonderful. But the gift of one person is changing me, changing us.
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This past weekend I was in Arizona visiting family. I live in New York City; most of my Arizona family live in small mining towns in the southeast part of the state, so I don’t see them often. It’s very hot there, but it’s also beautiful. The highways cut through hills covered in cacti and scrub brush. There are low mountains on the horizon and lots of bright blue sky.
Much of my family on my dad’s side has lived their entire lives in Arizona. Many of them work for the nearby copper mine. They also love to talk and tell stories, so I when I’m there I spend a lot of time listening.
It’s easy in New York or in the Episcopal Church to spend most of my time with people just like me. Most of my Facebook friends are liberal college graduates and so are most of the people I regularly interact with at work. Leaving New York and listening to my family’s stories exposes me to a different life and a slightly different way of seeing the world. Many of their lives have had a very different trajectory than mine. Around kitchen tables my aunt talked about her faith and my grandmother recounted memories of her life in a small town. She turned 80 this past weekend, and so she has many stories to tell, some happy and some not.
Sometimes, I confess, I got tired of listening (they really do like to talk), but I was glad to see them. They welcomed me and my wife with open arms and made us feel at home, even though it had been years since I’d visited. They reminded me of where I come from and helped me understand my own life a little better. Each time I see them and listen to their stories they expand my understanding of the world just a bit.
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Editor’s Note: Summer, with its longer days and relaxed schedule, can be a time of exploration or trying new things. In today’s summer ‘rerun,’ first posted July 31, 2014, Anna Olson uses a childhood memory as a springboard for action…
I have been doing something recently that I had not done in a ridiculously long time. I am making friends without the help of a fluent common language. Given that I live in one of the most immigrant-dominated cities in the world, it's really nothing short of embarrassing. But some combination of laziness, sin, and over-reliance on my fluency in LA's two most-spoken languages had convinced me that without easy language, there was no point in trying.
I once knew the skills and rewards of friendship beyond language. Some of the most important people in my adolescence were students at the ESL school for refugees where my mother taught and I volunteered. As a shy teenager unsure of my place in the world, I found welcome and understanding in relationship with newly-arrived beginning English speakers from Laos, Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Viet Nam.
As a kid, I learned that shared food and shared laughter and small gifts could make up for many deficits in communication. I learned that speaking a little slowly and very clearly (but not extra LOUDLY) is a big help. I learned that distilling complicated thoughts and feelings into very simple words is possible, even powerful. I learned that beginnings are awkward, but that the very act of hanging in there together forges trust, and eventually mutual comfort.
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Our community was blessed with the presence of a man named Wild Bill. For two years, Bill was a regular: at times a hugger, loving and wise; at times drunk, incomprehensible, and loud.
That was Bill. When he was with us, really with us, our community was enriched with knowing the love of Christ through Bill. When he wasn't fully present, our community was enriched by having to share that love of Christ with someone who wasn't always so lovable.
Wild Bill had lived on the streets of Chattanooga, under a bridge, for more than a dozen years. It boggles my mind and stretches my heart to think about what that means. He survived a dozen winters, outside. Wild Bill slept under a bridge, with cars whizzing by, over his head. He camped with friends, who he called brothers, developing relationships of interconnectedness deeper than many of us ever will know.
I first met Wild Bill (that’s the name he used) at Southside Abbey's worship on a Friday evening. Soon after, I was doing my best to make him feel welcome at Southside Abbey and I kept introducing him to people as Bill. He stopped me: “My name is Wild Bill.” As our relationship grew, I asked him: “Why Wild Bill and not just Bill?” He told me, “Of all the children my mother had, I was the wildest, so she called me Wild Bill.” He let that sink in for a most pregnant pause, before he let me in on the joke – he was an only child. That was Bill, excuse me, Wild Bill. Full of love; always ready with a smile or a joke.
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When we go out, they come in. It seems like too simple a formula. But it’s by far the closest to a sure bet that I’ve seen in parish ministry. It sure beats, “If we build it, they will come,” which I have heard an awful lot of times as church-building advice.
Probably worth remembering that “If you build it…” is a quote from a 1980s baseball fantasy movie, not the Bible or any other source that even purports to hold holy truth.
I just counted up the number of times that we have “gotten out there” from St. Mary’s in the last year. By that I mean some sort of public demonstration of faith or public liturgy that involved leaving church building (and usually the church property).
Here’s the list in the last twelve months:
Palm Sunday
Palms and Oaxacan band music around the block
Good Friday
2 ½ mile walk with Stations of the Cross, band music, singing and Big Jesus on the back of a truck
Feast of St. Christopher
Patron saint for a group of our parishioners and neighbors celebrated with band music, incense, procession led by the image of St. Cris, giant puppets, dancers, lots of good and loud all-day festivity
Halloween
A few lively folks in full costume giving out treats to the neighborhood kids; not terribly liturgical, but very popular nonetheless
All Saints Sunday
Mass in our church courtyard with band music and a traditional outdoor Day of the Dead Altar
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Bilingual liturgy can be difficult, especially in our word-driven Anglican tradition. It’s worth doing when there is a clear community-building purpose behind it. Articulate that purpose. Don’t expect everyone to like it. Introducing bilingual liturgy is a little like introducing a new vegetable to toddlers. It sometimes takes ten or twelve tries to get over the rejection reflex.
Over the course of fifteen years, I’ve done bilingual liturgy in four different churches, and multiple public contexts. Here is my opinionated take on ingredients for a holy bilingual celebration (in no particular order):
A bilingual celebrant, or team of celebrants that includes an excellent speaker of each language: Lay-clergy teams can work if the clergy person lets go of needing to be the star of the show. A monolingual celebrant with a translator (or worse yet, a monolingual celebrant who is sounding out words in a language he or she cannot speak) is a poor substitute for a fully empowered and fully bilingual team or individual. People need to hear someone speaking with authority and authenticity in their own language.
Great worship aids: As few separate pieces as environmentally possible. Everyone should have the same things in their hands. I recommend a printed word-for-word, side-by-side, liturgy, well aligned, in large type, with plenty of space. Page numbers! And yes, you should announce them. Avoid separate booklets or books by language, juggling multiple hymnals, as well as any aid that presumes people will know when it is their time to respond.
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At the small Episcopal church in San Antonio where I grew up, everyone knew me and I knew everyone. I felt completely at home every Sunday. That experience of being completely accepted and welcomed is part of the reason I am still part of the Episcopal Church.
Yet, I am occasionally reminded that church isn’t always supposed to be a comfortable place. At panel discussion during last week's Trinity Institute conference, the Rev. Amy Butler, Senior Minister of Riverside Church, reminded attendees that church should not be comfortable. Our churches should be “communities of conversion,” she said, not places that simply confirm our beliefs and biases.
This was one of several conversations I was a part of this past week about race and economic inequality. In these conversations I’ve been reminded again and again how segregated our churches are, not only in terms of race but also economics and politics.
It’s not hard to see how this has happened. We all feel more at comfortable in a homogenous church. It’s easier. Spending hours every week with strangers and people with vastly different experiences can be exhausting.
How do we reconcile the uncomfortable truths of the Gospel, its call to love and serve and be in communion with those who are different from ourselves, with our desire to feel at ease in our own community?
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In my first year as rector at St. Mary’s in Los Angeles I made several small pilgrimages.
I spent two cold, windy days walking around Manzanar, the best preserved of the camps where Japanese-Americans were imprisoned during World War II.
I walked the streets around the church, block-by-block, alone, and with the vestry.
And I went to visit the grave of Mary Louise Paterson. Ms Paterson was a Canadian-born missionary who had lived in Japan and adopted a daughter there. She and her son-in-law, Dr John Yamazaki, founded St. Mary’s as a mission to Japanese immigrants. John Yamazaki served as St. Mary’s first priest and vicar.
As tends to happen when we converse with the dead, I did most of the talking on my visit with Ms Paterson. I asked for her advice and blessing, and asked her to watch over my ministry. I filled her in on developments in the world and the church since her death in the late 1930s.
While she didn’t talk much that day, occasionally I sense some of the wisdom that Mary Louise Paterson brought to her role at St. Mary’s. One thing that stands out is that she immediately turned her attention to raising up and supporting leaders from within the Japanese immigrant community she had been called to serve. St. Mary’s developed in ways that made sense to the growing Japanese community, and in ways that ensured a Japanese-American vision and local leadership for the mission. The leadership dynasty that St. Mary’s is known for is the Yamazaki family, not Mary Louise Paterson, and rightly so.
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I have been doing something recently that I had not done in a ridiculously long time. I am making friends without the help of a fluent common language. Given that I live in one of the most immigrant-dominated cities in the world, it's really nothing short of embarrassing. But some combination of laziness, sin, and over-reliance on my fluency in LA's two most-spoken languages had convinced me that without easy language, there was no point in trying.
I once knew the skills and rewards of friendship beyond language. Some of the most important people in my adolescence were students at the ESL school for refugees where my mother taught and I volunteered. As a shy teenager unsure of my place in the world, I found welcome and understanding in relationship with newly-arrived beginning English speakers from Laos, Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Viet Nam.
As a kid, I learned that shared food and shared laughter and small gifts could make up for many deficits in communication. I learned that speaking a little slowly and very clearly (but not extra LOUDLY) is a big help. I learned that distilling complicated thoughts and feelings into very simple words is possible, even powerful. I learned that beginnings are awkward, but that the very act of hanging in there together forges trust, and eventually mutual comfort.
Continue reading...
Nota de la editora: Esta reflexión fue escrito en vísperas de la elección del nuevo obispo de la Diócesis de Masachusetts. Haga clic aquí para leer acerca de los resultados de esta elección. Una versión de este artículo está disponible aquí / An English version of this article is available here.
Cada vez que oigo estas estas líneas tan populares en nuestros servicios de adoración me remonto a los momentos en que el movimiento del Espíritu de Dios se palpa en los corazones de los líderes y congregantes de nuestras comunidades de fe latinas, envuelve y acompaña a todos con su armonía y dulzura a través de caminos impredecibles y abre posibilidades de impulsar tanto los planes ya imaginados como otros que no se habían considerado anteriormente.
El año pasado percibimos muy de cerca ese movimiento del amor divino en el proceso de buscar un nuevo obispo diocesano para nuestra diócesis. Si bien el proceso es y ha sido largo y complejo, el haber estado centrado y abrazado por las oraciones ofrecidas por muchísimas congregaciones dentro y fuera de la diócesis ha permitido que los miembros del grupo de discernimiento y el grupo de transición -- que tuvieron la oportunidad de detenerse a meditar en silencio y de reflexionar antes de tomar decisiones -- lograra llegar a consensos, sintiendo que el Espíritu de Dios de veras se movía y ofrecía la guía y la claridad necesarias para elegir al grupo de cinco candidatos/as y que además nos permitió tener a la apertura y el amor necesarios para permitir que se incluyeran dos candidatos/as nominados/as después de que se nombraron los/as primeros/as cinco.
Sigue leyendo...
Editor’s notes: This reflection was written on the eve of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts’ gathering to elect a new bishop. Click aquí.
Every time I hear those popular lines in one of our services I imagine the moments in which the Spirit of God has been felt in the hearts of leaders and members of our Latino communities of faith. Enveloping and accompanying them with harmony and sweetness along unpredictable roads, moving previously envisioned plans forward along with newly imagined ones.
Last year, while in the process of seeking a new bishop for our diocese, we felt the love and movement of the divine very closely. While the process is, and has been, both lengthy and complex, the fact that it was centered and enveloped in the prayers of congregations both within and outside our diocese has allowed members of the discernment and transition groups opportunities to meditate in silence and to reflect before making decisions, thus managing to reach a true initial consensus. The Spirit of God really moved them, giving them the necessary guidance, openness and clarity to choose the first group of five candidates and then to allow for the addition of two more candidates nominated after the first five.
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I will never forget the first time I heard the joyfulness, regardless of any pain or stress, I heard in the voices of the hospitalized Latino patients I visited when I was a pastoral volunteer. I was able to communicate with them in their native language and when they said “yes, come in” it was a happy invitation from both young and old men and women, many of whom had heart disease, or in some cases were anxiously awaiting possible heart transplants that could save their lives.
The gaze of patients, and often of their friends and family too, is what greets my entry into hospital rooms. They are sometimes sad or joyful or even full of hope. The most worrisome look, however, comes from those who seem to have given up their struggle for life. However, regardless of their individual situations, it is evident that being able to communicate in their native tongue immediately provides some relief which can help put them into an intimate and personal space where their grateful spirits can more easily share their faith in God and the divine healing power that guides the hands of their doctors and nurses to give them back their health.
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I once was asked to do an annual giving workshop at a parish which housed both an Anglo congregation and a Hispanic congregation. Viewed as two separate entities, there was concern about the lack of pledges submitted by those who attended the service spoken in Spanish.
The workshop was held on a sunny morning---primarily attended by those expressing concern from the Anglo congregation. I heard messages such as “there seems to be a lack of education around giving in the other congregation” and “I don`t think they realize how much is needed to keep our building afloat.”
While I was listening to their concerns, I heard the sound of shovels, men’s voices, and subsequent digging. Five men and their sons from the Spanish speaking service were landscaping the church’s front yard, using materials they had purchased and donating their time.
The irony was not lost on me.
It begs the question, how does culture impact how and what we give? What are we willing to let go in our process and take on from others?
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My current parish is just over 100 years old, typical of Episcopal parishes near the heart of Los Angeles. It was founded in another Heyday, at a time when our city was being built, and when a whole lot of intrepid (mostly women) missionaries were on the loose, for better or for worse.
St. Mary’s is a place that knows its history. There are numerous members who have family roots going back to the pre-World War II period at least. So when the parish set out think about the future, it was able to dig past the Big Heyday, and into some deeper stuff.
Our parish started because someone was paying attention. They noticed who was in the neighborhood, where people came from, what language they spoke. They noticed who was left out of the vision of many of the other churches in the area. They paid special attention to the kids.
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